I found the Crewel music competition by accident back in July. I had been checking up on my Facebook music page - as I like to do as often as possible - when I spotted a small advert to the side of the webpage. The advert displayed the bold Crewel logo with a sentence or so underneath advertising about a music competition. A music competition for 13 to 18 year olds... and I had to enter!

A fact about me: I'm mad about songwriting, playing guitar and listening to music. It's to the point where I'll see a guitar and most likely be able to point out the make or model straight away. While at a friend's house during summer, there was a poster in her room of a boy band she's obsessed with and I immediately was able to point at the guitar that one of the members had next to them and state "That's a Taylor 614ce". So don't take me to a music shop and not expect to be there for at least a few hours.

I've always liked writing stories.... or at least thinking them up in my head at night when I was too lazy to actually write them down. When I was about nine years old I remember deciding to try and turn a story into a song, so I got a piece of paper and wrote a really cheesy sounding set of lyrics about a friendship. I kept doing this for a while. There was another about being lost in the dark and ghosts surrounding me. These "songs" had repetitive, annoying melodies to them which I'd sing to myself over and over again (I can still remember some of them now) and when I got given a keyboard for Christmas I started to work out the melodies and played single, one-finger notes as I sang. This sparked my love for lyrics and writing. I started to keep all of my messy handwritten lyrics together in a folder and guarded it with my life – I'd never let my parents or friends know about them. When I was about 11, things started to change, such as I started secondary school, and I started to change my mind. I wanted to take music more seriously.

There has always been music somewhere around the house. My mum would play a lot of different music all the time. It ranged from The Waterboys and The Cranberries to artists such as Mary J Blige and Tracy Chapman. I didn't think much of it then, but today they are the sort of artists I look up to and admire the music of. The most influential and inspirational artist to me though is Taylor Swift. I absolutely love her music - especially her more country style tracks! I am into a lot of different music including country music. I don't really know what got me into it, but I have always loved the Dixie Chicks, Brooks & Dunn, Rascal Flatts and other country artists. I don't think my music is country at all, but I still love listening to it!

I love reading books as well as writing songs and stories. A lot of my time is taken up now by other things such as my music, school and family. I used to read a lot but don't get to as often now, so I love when I do get a chance to read a book. Before entering the Crewel competition, I read the first chapter which had been published online which was there to help inspire anyone thinking of entering. I was pulled in immediately; the story has a perfect mix of magic, love and thrill, which are some of my favourite things. I drew from these emotions in the story for inspiration when writing my entry for the competition. In my entry, a song named It's a Lie, I tried to bring through the dark, dangerous feeling given through the book. I wrote it from the main character, Adelice's, perspective. Other books I have loved reading in the past include Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson and the books in a series called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver.

I have been songwriting for a long time now. I started piano lessons a couple of years ago and I have been teaching myself to play guitar since February 2012. I love learning new chords and strumming patterns. For me, my songwriting is the main "feature" in my music. I work very hard on the songs I write and try my best to write songs that people will enjoy and I try and write or at least work on my songs every day.

As a singer/songwriter, I have huge dreams for the future and want to work really hard to make a career in music. I have really supportive family and friends and I am very lucky to be working and recording with an excellent producer, David Booth. Since January this year I have regularly been going to his recording studio to record some of my original songs. I perform at open mics a lot and regularly upload covers and original songs to my YouTube channel but really want to start gigging more and getting my music out more. I'm really excited for the future and can't wait to go further with my music!